We have reached out to Swiss teachers' groups, human rights organizations and authorities to make the best use of the film as a springboard for a broader discussion about Roma integration and the pressing issue of overcoming prejudice in Switzerland, where Roma migrants often face backlash.

Here is a partial list of Swiss screenings lined up for this fall:

Haute école pédagogique Vaud in Lausanne shows excerpts of the film on Sun, Sept 22 at 2pm at UNIL, Dorigny, as part of the Assises romandes de l'éducation, which focus this year on school integration; a full screening follows in the evening, with a discussion conducted by Miruna Coca-Cozma

Our School is this year's opening film for the CinéBrunch Regards d'Ailleurs series in Fribourg on Sat, Oct 13 at 11am at Cinemotion Rex; Q&A with Director Miruna Coca-Cozma follows the screening

Centre de Culture ABC in La-Chaux-de-Fonds will follow a screening on Tue, Oct 23 at 5:30pm with a round table on Roma integration with the participation of Amnesty
International Switzerland, the President of the Neuchâtel State Council and the Head of
the Department of Education, representatives of the Lausanne Police, and director Miruna
Coca-Cozma; Our School will also screen at ABC on Sat, Oct 27 and Sun, Oct 28 at 4pm

Cinéma de Cossonay shows Our School on Wed, Oct 24 at 8:30pm, again with a Q&A with Director Miruna Coca-Cozma

The wonderful arthouse cinema Kino Kunstmuseum in Berne will show Our School on Fri, Nov 2 at 6:30pm, Sat, Nov 3 at 6pm (followed by Q&A with Director Miruna Coca-Cozma), Sun, Nov 4 at 4:30pm (also followed by Q&A with Director Miruna Coca-Cozma), as well as Wed, Nov 7 at 6:30pm

Finally, we're returning to the Carouge Cinéma Bio 72 in Geneva, where the film ran for seven consecutive weeks this spring, for an educational screening with Director Miruna Coca-Cozma on Tues, Nov 13, at 11am

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Last year we had the honor of presenting Our School
in the Romanian film festival in New York at the Walter Reade Theater,
on the Romania's national day. Director Mona Nicoara, who lives in New York, had been attending the festival for many years. It is by far the most exciting and innovative
Romanian cultural event in the city, with a fantastic audience,
outstanding industry presence, excellent press coverage from the NYTimes
to the Village Voice, and, last but not least, a great line-up of New
Wave movies curated by a team of Lincoln Center Film Society and
Transylvania International Film Festival programmers.

Recently, the Romanian Cultural Institute, which until last year
funded the event, has fallen victim to political changes and culture
wars raging back in Bucharest. You can find a good overview of the
situation published by New York Times earlier this summer here.
Since then, the Institute's programs for the remainder of this year
have been defunded, its leadership replaced with throwbacks to
Communist-era ideologues, and its mission changed to, for instance,
producing a series of documentaries called "Treasures of the
Carpathians." Just today, the newly appointed head of the Institute
announced in an interview
that he wants to shift the focus from film and the arts to promoting
Romania's contributions to science and technology like the...radiator.
It sounds funny, but for those of us who remember Romania before 1989,
it is sadly familiar.

Luckily, the team who founded the festival is working hard to keep
it going, with support from the Lincoln Center Film Society, private
foundations, and Romanian artists. But they need to fill their budget
gap through crowd funding. They just launched a Kickstarter campaign, which we supported by volunteering to produce the video below.

Please donate
and spread the word. Every bit, from anywhere in the world, counts, and
every supporter and gesture of solidarity is an important victory for
Romanian artists and filmmakers, and for the dedicated New York audience
of this festival. A dollar a day keeps the radiators away.

Order DVDs for Educational and Institutional use now

Order Swiss/French/German DVDs now

Order Romanian DVDs now

Upcoming Screenings

About the film

Award-winning documentary about three Roma (“Gypsy”) children who participate in a project to desegregate the local school in their small Transylvanian town, struggling against tradition and bigotry with humor, optimism and sass. Shot over four years, the film tells a captivating, bitter-sweet and often funny story about hope, race and opportunities.